The number of visitors to amusement parks has been increasing each year, with a 5.1% increase from 2013 to 2014 in attendance with respect to visiting top 10 amusement parks in the United States, according to Themed Entertainment Association (TEA), and there are more than 400 amusement parks and attractions in the United States alone. As the number of people attending amusement parks increases, the importance of amusement park ride passenger safety significantly increases. Therefore, the amusement parks are required to monitor each ride and maintain regulatory guidelines to ensure passenger safety.
Accordingly, ride tracking systems have been developed to track motion, position, orientation, distance, etc. of rides to detect abnormality of the rides. For example, amusement parks generally have standard operating or maintenance procedures for routinely checking the condition of the rides by checking the motion, position, orientation, distance, etc. of rides.
In general, amusement parks conduct scheduled routine maintenance operations at certain time intervals for particular rides and the like. For example, a designated maintenance staff conducts part inspection, part replacement, etc. as required based on manufacturer recommendations or based on maintenance history data if available.
However, as unexpected problems may occur in any machine due to weather, accident, the amount of use, etc., there is a safety issue when an unexpected problem occurs in an amusement park ride. Accordingly, it is important to make sure that every ride in the amusement park complies with all safety requirements, and thus, non-routine maintenance operations are necessary.
In addition, maintenance staff member may be limited in their maintenance scheduling based on availability, and thus, scheduled maintenance may not satisfy safety requirements if the maintenance is delayed for an undesirably long period of time.
Further, it is difficult to verify whether the completed maintenance satisfies the safety requirements after the assigned maintenance staff member completes the maintenance work.